


4-F

by komodobits



Series: Ninety One Whiskey [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1940s AU, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Mental Illness, Timestamp, homophobia and implication of homophobic violence, i can't really tag this as WW2 AU anymore, they're so in love folks, vintage gay sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komodobits/pseuds/komodobits
Summary: 1945. They take it a day at a time.





	4-F

**Author's Note:**

> Happy V-E Day! I said I wouldn’t do this, but then I found that I was still thinking about my boys six months later, so there you have it. Re: content warnings – if you made it through 91W in one piece, you’ll be fine. Disclaimer that I’m not disabled, and while I have tried to be as accurate and as sensitive as possible, if you pick up on anything which needs to be changed, please let me know!!!
> 
> Thank you to Askee, for betaing; to Sandra, for being my porn expert and advisor in all things Sappy; to Alex, for everything. For literally everything.

“I want to see an orchard where the trees grow in straight lines  
And the yellow fox finds shelter between the navy-blue trunks,  
Where it gets dark early in summer  
And the apple-blossom is allowed to wither on the bough.”

 

**October, 1945 – thirty-five days later**

 

These days, they’re hardly ever in the same bed.

 

“Come on.” Dean, curled up and sleepy under the blanket, stretches a grasping hand in Castiel’s direction. “Get in here. It’s late.”

 

“Yeah,” Castiel says. “I will.” He doesn’t—not yet. His skin itching with threat, and he has to walk the perimeter.

 

Sam and Jessica are up north with Jessica’s family, and the house feels unsettlingly empty. Castiel can’t honestly say he hates it—he and Dean don’t have to constantly censor themselves or maintain a careful distance—but Castiel can’t shake the sense of too few men holding the line. Sam caught on quickly to Castiel’s careful nightly walks around the property, joined him sometimes. Looks good in here, he would call from the kitchen. _Should we go outside?_

 

He’s faster with it now, knows the house’s weak points and blind spots, but he takes his time. If he hurries, he might miss something. You can never afford to be careless in the—Castiel’s hand sweeps slow over the front door to feel out the handle in the dark. He’s not in the field anymore.

 

By the time he returns upstairs, Dean is already slack and heavy with sleep. He lies on his side, one hand still reaching across the blanket, waiting. Castiel looks at him, watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. He’s breathing. Castiel has to remind himself sometimes; he has to stop and check in a sudden, searing twist of panic. Dean is still breathing.

 

Castiel taps the back of Dean’s hand with his fingertips, and he stirs only to retract his hand into his own space, leaving a narrow sliver of space on this single bed for Castiel to climb in. He tucks himself in alongside Dean, his arms curled loosely to his chest so as not to take up space; his cold feet graze shyly over Dean’s bare shin, and Dean makes a small, bleary sound of complaint in the dark, shifts away.

 

"Sorry," Castiel says quietly, pulling his feet back beneath the covers, and he holds himself carefully away. Dean's hand fumbles, more than half-asleep, across the distance between them to curl his fingers into the hem of Castiel's undershirt. Slowly, Castiel lets out his breath, lets go of the tension that he can feel pulled violin-string tight through every muscle, and he lets himself find Dean beneath the blankets. He bumps the knuckles of his closed fist against Dean’s waist, opens his fingers to pass his hand over his side. He traces Dean’s skin with his fingertips where Dean’s shirt has rucked up to his ribcage.

 

With Dean’s hand in his shirt, Castiel drifts, uncomfortable and restless. Every time his eyes grow heavy and he begins to sink into sleep, there is a sickening lurch in his stomach and he jerks awake again with an unshakeable sense of the need for vigilance. Groggy and disoriented, he can’t remember whether he checked the perimeter.

 

The longer he lies awake, the worse his uncertainty becomes; what begins as a concern in the back of his head tightens in his throat until he can hear his pulse in his ears. He lurches out of bed, goes downstairs. He checks the windows and doors. He touches the locks. He stands in the hallway and he tries to breathe. He wants to walk the yard and survey the street, but he can’t see well enough in his one good eye to check it through the window; that would mean undoing the locks, and then re-locking. Walking the length of the house again. Checking the windows.

 

Castiel goes back upstairs.

 

He lies down beside Dean. He closes his eyes. He tries to sleep.

***

 

**July, 1951—two-thousand one-hundred and seventy-eight days later**

 

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, for the hundredth time. “I’m sorry.” He lifts the rag from Castiel’s face, rinses it out in the bowl of warm water set beside Dean’s knee. The water runs red. “I shouldn’t have—”

 

“No, you should have,” Castiel says, obstinate and unflinching. “We weren’t doing anything wrong. You were right to tell them to fuck off.”

 

“Right to let my big mouth start a fight I needed you to finish? Sure.”

 

Castiel tries for a shrug. “I have no feeling in this side of my face, anyway.”

 

Dean doesn’t laugh. He squeezes the water from the rag, lifts it again to press carefully to the split skin at Castiel’s cheek, at his hairline. He perches carefully balanced on the edge of the tub; Castiel sits on the toilet lid and braces Dean with a hand to his elbow to keep him steady. There is the slow drip from the faucet; overhead, the electric bulb casts a harsh, inconstant white light. Castiel keeps his chin tilted up, gaze turned to the mildew-swirled tile. Dean’s hands are steady and careful, wiping at Castiel’s temple and the apple of his cheek. He says nothing; he picks small black crumbs of asphalt from Castiel’s face without comment. He will need a new crutch, too; when Castiel stepped in between Dean and the assailants, the crutch was the nearest weapon within arms’-reach, on the ground beside Dean’s outstretched arm. It smashed on impact.

 

“Besides,” Castiel says, off-hand, still trying for levity, “this reminds me of the old days.”

 

Dean lifts his face, eyebrows raised. He looks unimpressed. “You trying to be romantic now?”

 

His hand, when he presses the rag to Castiel’s face, is fierce and thorough; Castiel flinches. “Is it working?” he asks.

 

“No.”

 

Castiel sighs. “Dean, this isn’t—”

 

“I swear to God, if you’re about to tell me this isn’t the first time you’ve have the shit beaten out you—don’t. That is not going to help me calm down.”

 

Castiel is, reluctantly, obediently, quiet. At last, he only says, “Thank you.”

 

Dean’s eyes flash to Castiel’s, still hard, his jaw tight, but as he looks over Castiel’s face, something softens in him. He lowers the rag from Castiel’s face. Castiel reaches out to cup Dean’s jaw in one hand, thumbing carefully at Dean’s split lip.

 

“Ow,” Dean says, pointedly. Castiel gives him an exasperated look, and Dean grouches, by way of justification, “Gonna hurt like a bitch when you kiss me.”

 

“So I won’t kiss you,” Castiel says.

 

Dean frowns. He opens his mouth, closes it again uselessly. “I mean—”

 

Castiel leans forwards. Blood drips from his hair onto the tiled floor, and he kisses Dean, slow and soft, at the corner of his mouth.

***

**May, 1949 – one-thousand three-hundred and thirty-two days later**

 

Standing under a blue umbrella in the drizzling rain, a few miles from the sea, Charlie Bradbury wears a flowered dress and a smile. The colour of both suit her nicely, and she looks happier than Castiel’s ever seen her. He and Dean make slow progress towards her, Castiel with the strap of both bags slung over his good arm, Dean white-knuckled on his crutch.

 

“Hey, Charlie,” Dean says, grinning wide, and he stops to catch his breath a few steps shy of her on the sidewalk; she closes the distance to put her arms around him.

 

Castiel, beside him, flounders, unsure how to address her. “Bradbury,” he says at last, stiffly. “It’s good to see you.”

 

“Hi!” Charlie steps back and smiles at him. “I think you can call me Charlie now, if you want to. It’s really good to see you, um—” She, too, falters, and she looks at him warily, sizing him up.

 

“Captain Novak is fine,” Castiel says. The delivery falls flat, and her face changes.

 

“Oh. Sorry, sir, of course, I—

 

“I’m kidding,” Castiel says, somewhat awkwardly. “Castiel.”

 

Charlie visibly relaxes, and Dean says, “See? Same person. Still not funny.” He looks over at Castiel. “Charlie was worried you’d be different.”

 

Castiel lets his eyes flick over Charlie, up and down. He says, dead-pan, “You need to polish your shoes,” and he leads the way into the diner. Charlie looks delighted.

 

Inside, the diner is small but cosy. There is a large family in one of the booths, an over-excited child with a fistful of crayons squawking excitedly, and a waitress stoops over a recently-vacated table, scooping up dishes and cutlery with a clatter to pile high in her arms, and a manager speaking to someone from the kitchen, and Dean’s mouth is moving unintelligibly. Castiel drags his eyes from Dean’s lips, giving up on trying to hear what he’s saying, and finds Dean’s eyes on him, eyebrows raised. Castiel shakes his head.

 

Dean bumps a hand to Charlie’s elbow, says something, points to the far corner. Charlie nods and heads down the aisle towards an empty window booth. She turns back, her hand on the back of the bench-seat, and she says, “This better?” Her voice is still threatened by the noise at the other side of the diner, but she rises above it now, and the ringing confusion, the sense of being swallowed by directionless sound, is gone.

 

“Thank you,” Castiel says. He sets down his and Dean’s bags, pushes them under the table, and then slides first along the bench, boxed in between the window and Dean, when he sits.

 

They order coffee and lunch, and Castiel tries to get used to the way this feels—asking personal questions, trying to ignore the instinct to stay aloof and impersonal. It’s not one-sided; every time he looks over at Charlie, her chin lifts a fraction, and when she catches herself, she grins. She tells them about the book-store where she works now, how it’s quiet and calm and mundane and perfect. She tells them she has a cat, now, and Castiel half-turns in the bench towards Dean.

 

“Not happening,” Dean says.

 

Castiel huffs, reaches for his coffee.

 

Over food, Dean fills her in with what they’ve been doing—the garage, the evening classes in accounting, the work in the garden. Castiel talks at length about his vegetable patch until prompted by a gentle hand to the back of his wrist and a reminder that his lunch is getting cold, and otherwise, he mostly listens. Dean and Charlie share jokes, recount stories, grin wide and laugh ugly with things they both remember. Charlie tells them that she’s not met any of the other guys from Baker since she left. She touches a nervous hand to the curled ends of her hair. “I don’t think they’d recognise me,” she says, and lets out a deflated bubble of a laugh. Dean pays for her lunch, and fills her in.

 

Near enough every man in the company wrote him when the news broke out that he’d been found and got home safely, but he gets letters from a few more frequently—Sergeant Lafitte, Corporal Tran, Corporal Hanscum. Castiel, on the other hand, has only heard with any regularity from Gabriel, who he knows that neither Dean nor Charlie have any real interest in. Gabriel was just another officer—the fact he made it out without a scratch, never hit, never wounded, would not interest them. Gabriel has joked, in letters, about his lack of a Purple Heart to pin beside his oak leaves, even when they used to talk about the army handing them out like candy; Castiel has more than he needs and has offered, half-seriously, to share. He and Dean have five between the two of them, and Castiel doesn’t know about Dean, but he doesn’t care for the reminder.

 

Between the waitress clearing their plates and the arrival of dessert, Dean excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Castiel doesn’t offer to help him up, aware that his hand on the small of Dean’s back is more embarrassment than help, and Charlie watches quietly as Dean awkwardly manoeuvres up onto his crutch. In his absence, as he moves slowly through the diner, the table falls into silence.

 

Castiel turns his mug of coffee until the handle is at a perfect right-angle to him. He fiddles with the crease of an unused napkin.

 

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says, abruptly. “I’ll get over how weird this feels.”

 

Castiel tilts his head over. “I might need longer,” he admits.

 

“I feel like I can’t ask you anything personal or you’ll yell at me.”

 

“I never yelled at you,” Castiel says, trying to recall a particular mistake that Charlie might have made. He can remember a couple of the big fuck-ups from other members of Baker, but largely, the day-to-day of those years blurs into itself—in his memory, it’s mud and fear and Dean and little else.

 

A slow smile lifts on Charlie’s mouth. “Agree to disagree on that one, sir,” she says tactfully, and then the waitress comes over with their desserts – pie for Dean, coffee cake for Castiel, a fruit tart of some kind for Charlie.

 

Castiel sits back to allow the waitress room to deliver their plates, and when she is gone, he frowns. “When?”

 

Charlie’s smile widens. “How long you got?”

 

Embarrassment rises hot along Castiel’s throat; he rubs at the back of his neck. “I apologise. I was—”

 

“Hey, no apology needed.” Charlie holds her hands up in surrender, and then leans past him to retrieve a fork for her dessert. “I get it. You were doing your job. It’s just—I guess it’s just kind of nuts for me, trying to separate you as a person from you as CO.”

 

Castiel says nothing.

 

“Um.” Charlie opens her mouth, then hesitates. She stalls for time with an enormous mouthful of tart, pastry flaking from her fork. Then: “You know what? If I say this while Dean’s here, he’ll laugh at me, so I’m gonna get this out of my system. Um.”

 

Castiel stills, wary. He looks at her.

 

“Thank you, I guess is what I want to say. For everything.” Her voice is quiet, a little awkward. “I get that for you it was probably just—you doing your job, nothing special, but, um. We all knew how lucky we were. So thank you.”

 

Castiel doesn’t know how to respond. He wants to tell her that she’s wrong, that he had no idea what he was doing ninety percent of the time; he wants to thank her, but that’s not an appropriate answer; _you’re welcome_ feels glib and insincere. He settles, at last, for some poorly-worded insistence as to the power of good NCOs, and then they both eat their desserts quietly until Dean’s return. 

***

**January, 1946 – one-hundred and three days later**

 

Castiel sits in the kitchen, both hands cupped around his mug of congealing coffee. It’s past cold now, but he doesn’t care.

 

“—don’t understand. What are you talking about?” Sam’s voice—the snippets that Castiel can decipher of it, in the flat wash of noise—is bewildered.

 

“Me and him.”

 

Castiel lifts the mug to his mouth and drinks.

 

“Jesus, Sam, he’s been here two months. He sold his goddamn house to come here—what the fuck did you think was—”

 

“But you’re not—”

 

They are speaking at the same time, and to Castiel’s uneven hearing, it is an incomprehensible tangle of sound. It rolls together until all that he can pick out the harshness in the words, the anger and disbelief. Castiel closes his eyes.

 

For a moment, the noise settles, and Sam’s voice comes through clear. “This is a joke, right?”

 

Jessica’s voice, then, soft and calming: “Sam—”

 

“—and, what, he’s in love with you? I don’t get it. Your commanding officer is—”

 

Castiel scrapes his chair back from the table and walks out. He pushes through the back door, out into the bitter January cold, and he stands in the snow in his shirt-sleeves and unpolished loafers. He breathes. Behind him, the kitchen door slams hard, the windowpanes rattling, and there is the sharp sound of something falling from the wall, smashing on the stone underfoot. Castiel doesn’t turn to investigate. His shoulders are pulled high and tense, and he can’t relax his hands from fists.

 

He can pack. Much of his things are still in his bag—force of habit, leftover from the field. It won’t take him long at all; he can be gone before dinner if he needs to be. He doesn’t know where he’ll go, but he has enough money put aside that he won’t be homeless just yet.

 

Castiel’s throat is tightening. He knew this would happen. He can live with it—as long as they let him say goodbye. If they make him leave without saying goodbye—

 

At his back, the kitchen door creaks softly open.

 

Castiel opens his eyes, exhales sharply to relieve the tension ratcheting tighter in his chest. He wipes a hand over his face and turns, straight-spined, calm, to find Jessica standing behind him. She has had the sense, at least, to put on a coat, although she hugs it closed rather than button it properly. Her fingers tangle together in front of her stomach, and her smile is uncertain. Her breath curls whitely from her mouth.

 

“I’m sorry about that,” she says, which is not what Castiel was expecting. She sounds genuinely remorseful.

 

Castiel says nothing.

 

For a moment, Jessica looks as though she might approach him or say something, but she does  neither. She smooths her hands over the front of her coat, and Castiel cannot help looking at her appraisingly—at her curling hair, at her lightly smudged eye make-up, her knee-length blue skirt. Of course, she is also pushy, occasionally petty, frequently short-tempered with just about anything and anyone, but she is nevertheless what Castiel’s mother always told him a wife was supposed to be. Castiel has seen the way she dotes on Sam. Kisses his forehead as she breezes past in the hall, drifts a hand over the small of his back. She makes it look easy.

 

She looks at him, soft and sad, and she says, “I know you love him.”

 

Castiel looks at her. The instinctive answer, the one he has ready in his mouth before he can even think properly about how he should respond, is denial: _What are you talking about? How dare you. I'm not a queer. I would never—I could never—I don't—_

 

He says, instead, in a voice that is low, strangled: "I can explain.” He says it even as his head is swimming, because he can't explain. There is no excuse or justification—he loves Dean, and that is the end of it.

 

Jessica shakes her head. “You don’t need to,” she says, and Castiel wants to say thank you but he doesn't trust her. He doesn't know the catch. He stays quiet. She glances wistfully, then, back over her shoulder at the door to the kitchen. She is already pink-cheeked with cold. “Come on. Come back inside. It’s freezing out here.”

 

Castiel looks away, drops his gaze to watch his feet, toes pushing through the snow. He can feel the wet cold seeping already through his shoes. He buries his hands into the pockets of slacks. “I’ve been colder.”

 

There is a sharp wind lifting through the trees, rattling the wooden posts of the fence in their brackets. It snaps the collar of Castiel’s shirt hard. Jessica’s eyebrows lift. “Alright, tough guy,” she says gently. “Come on—inside. I’m gonna make us hot chocolate.”

 

 “Thank you,” he starts, haltingly.

 

Jessica hears the refusal in it. She tips her chin up, resigned, as though she knew Castiel was a lost cause before she began. “Nothing’s going to change, Castiel,” she says.

 

Castiel sets his jaw.

 

“With Sam, it’s—surprise, not hatred. He’ll come around.” Jessica’s smile is small but sure. “I like you, Castiel. And I’m sorry to say, but this wasn’t new to me. I knew from the first day you showed up here.”

 

Resignation sinks into the set of Castiel’s shoulder, and his head ducks into his chest. He wants to ask whether Jessica is astute or whether he was obvious, but he thinks he won’t like the answer. He remembers choking on Dean’s name in his mouth, crushing a smoothly-ironed napkin in his fist and finding his eyes burning hot with tears in the middle of the Winchesters’ back garden. At the time, it hadn’t seemed important.

 

Jessica goes on, “Sam’s not too perceptive on things like that, but he’s smart as hell. Dean didn’t talk when he came back—not about Germany, not about France, none of it. We could get one-word answers out of him sometimes. Yes, no. Then you wrote him back. That first letter he sent you, saying he was okay, and I don't know what you wrote but it was the first time I ever saw him smile, and God, he was handsome. Actually handsome. I didn't realise.” She pushes her hands into the pockets of her coat, hunches her shoulders against the cold, and she waits, silent, until Castiel lifts his head and looks at her. She says, “Sam’s smart enough to recognise that Dean with you here is the closest we’ve got to the guy who went to England five years ago. He’ll come around.”

 

Her piece done, Jessica gives a short nod and takes a single, neat step backwards towards the house. She rests one hand on the door-handle, and looks to him. “Don’t freeze out here,” she says, her voice soft. “And come inside when you’re ready.”

 

Castiel’s hands uncurl, slowly, to hang loose at his sides. When she opens the door to step back inside, there is no wave of sound that rolls out to greet them—no raised voices, no expletives. No shattering of glass.

 ***

 

**September, 1947 – seven-hundred and sixty-four days later**

 

It’s a bright day in Bedford, warm and clear. There are already flowers at the foot of the grave, a froth of white lilac—Eleanor has been here earlier. Castiel will go to her later. He wanted to do this alone.

 

On his walk across, Castiel passed others at similar ceremonies, flowers in hands, faces tear-smudged, speaking softly: _I miss you every day, I wish you here, I’ll never forget you._ Castiel comes empty-handed and the words stick in his throat. He can’t think of a single thing to say that Inias doesn’t already know.

 

As he stands there, he belatedly realises the position his body has, by muscle memory, settled into—his heels together, his spine straight, head high. He moves his feet apart; he stands easy. With his hands pushed deep into his pockets, he looks down at the headstone and says nothing.

 

He could mention Dean, but feels he shouldn’t, feels it would not be appreciated. Then again, he always wanted to see Castiel happy, and this is as near it as Castiel feels he will ever be. Castiel could mention what he is doing with his life out west, but the fact Castiel is alive at all seems vastly unfair, especially standing here to pay respects to the dry earth. He doesn’t even know if the body was expatriated. He imagines it must have been, for Eleanor’s sake, but from his fragmented, unsteady memories of what happened, putting him back together must not have been easy. Still, he cannot be sure, and there is certainly no point in making graveside confessions to an empty box.

 

He missed last year. September came around with hot electric storms that ached in his shoulder and elbow and knee, and Castiel had curled into the window-seat to stare out at the eddying black cloud, thinking of a neglected revolver at the bottom of a desk-drawer whenever he was too far from the touch of Dean’s hands. He doesn’t dwell on dying too much these days. He thinks of his life as a slow-healing wound, uncleanly stitched together at the edges, raggedly whole as long as he doesn’t pick at it.

 

There is a dull stinging at the backs of Castiel’s eyes, a weight behind his ribs. Castiel lifts his eyes skyward, swallows hard around the grief tightening in his throat. He wipes his face with an open hand.

 

He takes one step forwards, reaches out to touch his fingertips to the curve of the headstone, just once.

 

He says, “I’ll be here next year.”

 

Castiel has never been good with words; he thinks Inias will understand that.

 ***

**November, 1945 – sixty-one days later**

Good days are few and far between, but some are undeniably worse than others. The first time Dean stops talking, Castiel doesn’t know what to do.

 

It lasts a few days. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t eat, doesn’t often lift his eyes from wherever he’s staring, blank and unfocused. Dean is hunched low in the armchair, his face turned away towards the sitting-room’s faded wallpaper. Silent when Sam came to help him downstairs in the morning; silent through Jessica’s offers of a drink or a snack or fresh air, a seat in the sunlit garden. Castiel hovers uncertainly in the door, his eyes tracing with worry the exhausted curve of Dean’s spine. His crutch lies abandoned on the floor at the foot of the chair—not quite within arm’s reach. It doesn’t matter to Dean, who hasn’t moved in hours.

 

Castiel hovers uncertainly in the doorway. He is stopped by Sam's hand, gentle, on his shoulder.

 

"He's okay," Sam says, his voice low. "He just—he gets like this sometimes. The best thing is to leave him."

 

Castiel turns from Sam to look past him, through the open door and into the sitting room.

 

"He'll be fine," Sam says. "He just needs time—and space. I'll let you know when he—"

 

"Cas?"

 

Dean's voice is scratched hoarse, as though he's forgotten how to use it. He half-turns his face away from the wall—not enough to look over at them properly, but enough that Castiel can see his face. He looks hollow; he looks as though he is still in Europe.

 

Sam's hand falls silently from Castiel's shoulder.

 

Castiel can feel his eyes on the side of his face, but he doesn’t look; he steps past him. He moves slow and careful, as though trying to keep Dean from startling into flight. He fumbles a hand for the arm of the armchair—always slightly further than his hand expects—and then plants his weight solidly to ease himself down onto his knees. He settles into an unsteady crouch at Dean's feet.

 

"Hello, Dean," he says.

 

Dean doesn't answer. Castiel watches his throat work, his fingers clenching on the fabric of the armchair. He turns his face away, to the wall, but Castiel can see the red shine of his eyes, the crumpled line of his brow. Castiel reaches out to curl his hand around Dean's, his fingers sweeping slow and careful over Dean's knuckles, and he says nothing.

 

He is there until his knees become stiff. Until his back aches and Dean’s eyes are sore, swollen, but dry. Until the afternoon dims through the wide bay window, shadows lengthening languidly, until the sun hangs just shy of the horizon, low enough that the dark, deep rust-orange of its touch is painted across the room. The light catches on the coppery ends of Dean’s eyelashes, picks out the uneven ridge of his shrapnel scar. Dean’s hand is slack beneath Castiel’s fingers, exhaustion loosening his shoulders and arms as though his strings have been cut.

 

Dean says, “Spent a long time waiting to die.”

 

His voice is raw, thin, as though scraped bloody from reluctant lungs.

 

Castiel’s steady rhythm of reassurance over the back of Dean’s hand becomes still. They have spoken about what happened in Germany—peremptorily, in no real detail—but this is new.

 

“You’d think it’s not all that different to combat, the way we always—but it’s different. It’s different.”

 

Castiel says, “I’m sorry.” When the words come out, he realises how long he has been knelt here in silence; his voice, too, is rough. His head dips, his forehead butting against the arm of Dean’s seat, just shy of Dean’s limp hand. He says, again, “I’m sorry. I went back for you, I tried—”

 

Dean’s mouth twists. “Not your fault. You couldn’t – I know you couldn’t get me. My leg was all bust up, I couldn’t move, you couldn’t come get me. It was just—shitty. You had no choice. You did everything you could.”

 

“I’m sorry it happened.”

 

Dean’s hand shifts, only slightly, but enough for him to hook his thumb over Castiel’s. “Yeah.”

 

They sit together in the lessening light.

***

 

**April** **, 1947 – five-hundred and seventy-four days later**

 

Castiel says, “Come on.” He pushes his extended hand more firmly towards Dean.

 

“I just want to check you remember,” Dean says, slow and suspicious, “that I only have one leg.”

 

Castiel rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dean. I remember.”

 

Not without some reticence, Dean obediently takes his hand, and Castiel pulls him carefully to his feet. The song on the radio—crackly with static, turned up too high—is one that Castiel doesn’t know, something slow and easy. A man singing. A piano. Castiel is quick to step in, sliding both hands around Dean’s waist to settle in the small of his back and steady him.

 

Dean’s hands come up to clutch at Castiel’s shoulders, fingers digging in tight enough to hurt. His breath is caught in the back of his throat for a moment before he adjusts his balance, and then gradually he loosens his grip, slings his arms around Castiel’s neck. They don’t move or step, exactly; they sway. They are shyly flush from chest to hips, Dean’s knee between Castiel’s legs; Dean leans heavily on him, but he is steady, and he rocks a little where Castiel shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

 

Dean’s forehead bumps against Castiel’s temple. He says, “Why are we doing this?”

 

Castiel scowls. “You’re a hard man to sweep off his feet.”

 

“Foot,” Dean corrects absently. “And not really—just push.” His mouth tilts lopsidedly up at one corner, and up this close, Castiel can’t put together the entirety of his expression, but he can pick out his smile. His eyes.

 

With the blinds pulled, the early morning light that filters through is a warm, muted yellow that casts the kitchen in a soft glow. It’s spring outside, finally, green things unfurling and the blue sky unfolding. Dean tucks his face alongside Castiel’s, his cheek rubbing over his hair.

 

“Thought you didn’t dance,” Dean says, off-hand. His mouth is right by Castiel’s good ear; Castiel hears him perfectly.

 

Castiel hums non-committally. “We’re not dancing,” he says.

 

Dean snorts a laugh. “Bullshit.”

 

Castiel hides the start of a smile into the hinge of Dean’s jaw.

***

 

**February, 1946 – one-hundred and fifty-two days later**

 

"Morning, handsome."

 

Castiel cracks his eyes open, bleary and disoriented. He was up at one, and at oh-two-sixteen, and a little past four, and he went downstairs at oh-five-thirty-two to make tea, and since seven he has been back in bed, not quite sleeping. Lying still, eyes shut, is close enough.

 

Up this close, Dean’s face is hard to focus on; Castiel has to choose an aspect on which to concentrate, trying to build up the picture of Dean piece by piece. The upwards-tilt of his nose; the scattering of his freckles; the soft shape of his mouth; his green eyes, long eyelashes; the thick scar through his forehead. The light of a late morning through the crack in the curtains is thin, pale and colourless with oncoming winter, and the air beyond the blanket is chill.

 

Castiel rubs at his eye with the back of his hand. “Morning.”

 

Dean says nothing, and Castiel looks at him. His fingers reach to skim over the side of Castiel's face, and Castiel imagines he can feel it, where his nerve-endings are shot—the gentle pressure of his fingertips, the warmth of his skin. Dean's thumb over the scar-ridged apple of Castiel's cheek, his palm fitting snugly to Castiel's jaw. Castiel leans in and kisses him. His mouth is warm and stale with sleep, his breath musty, and Castiel is helpless to it.

 

They press close enough together that their foreheads touch, their noses rubbing side by side. Dean runs a palm over Castiel’s hip; his breath is soft, warm, over Castiel’s lips. Castiel kisses him, and it is slow, comfortable, no heat in it. Castiel’s lips are dry, and Dean breathes a sigh into it. Castiel kisses him, again, again. Dean melts against him, a soft noise in the back of his throat, and he brings up a hand to cup the side of Castiel’s face.

 

Dean opens his mouth under Castiel’s, catches Castiel’s bottom lip, and there is the hint of his tongue as he presses closer. It’s only shy, skirting at the edges of something more heated, but it sparks want beneath Castiel’s skin, and he is surprised. They don’t do this often; it was November when they last came somewhere close to fucking, with Dean’s fingers inside Castiel and him gasping against Dean's throat while Sam and Jessica were at the store, before Dean became slow, quiet, distracted, his cock softening against Castiel’s thigh. Day to day, Dean touches Castiel whenever he can, but never like this.

 

Tentative, Castiel moves in closer, kisses Dean slow and open-mouthed. His fingers drift under the hem of Dean’s shirt, graze over the warm skin of the small of his back and go no further, waiting to see if Dean will stop him. Dean doesn’t. He nudges his knee between Castiel’s legs, and Castiel shifts to accommodate him, but he must bump the end of Dean’s other leg, because Dean abruptly stiffens, inhaling sharply through his teeth.

 

“Sorry,” Castiel says, becoming still. “Are you alright?”

 

“Fine.”

 

There is an inelegant moment of rearranging limbs, and then Castiel kisses him again, gentler now. They move together, clumsy and slow. Dean can’t quite build up any real rhythm; he struggles to lie on his left side without overbalancing, and his hand on Castiel’s hips is just tight enough to be almost painful, more of an anchor than out of want. Castiel pushes gently at him, tilts him over flat onto his back, and Castiel sits up, swings his leg over Dean’s hips.

 

Dean is out of breath. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing. “You take it from here. I’m too old for this.” His grin is a little brittle; there is something hollow in his eyes.

 

Castiel leans over him and kisses him. He misjudges the distance, knocks their teeth together, and then Dean uses a hand on the back of Castiel’s neck to fit their mouths together. Castiel settles a hand on Dean’s shoulder, lets his other drift up Dean’s side, sweep over his chest.

 

Beneath Castiel, Dean is shaky, his face hot beneath the jaw. Castiel kisses him, but his mouth is a flat, resisting line, and then Dean twists away.

 

Castiel stops moving. “Dean?”

 

Dean's breath hitches in his chest, and he swallows a noise, something small and rough catching in his chest. His hands are balled into fists, resting on Castiel’s thighs; when Castiel reaches for him, Dean turns his face into the pillow. Castiel leans forwards, fumbles to find him, thumb rubbing over his cheek, and finds the skin tacky and wet. Dean drags in a shuddering breath, and the next sob, he doesn’t quite catch. It burst out of him, ugly and raw and painful, and he buries his face in the crook of his elbow.

 

"Dean," Castiel says. He finds Dean's other hand, threads his fingers through Dean's, and lifts it to kiss Dean's knuckles, but Dean yanks his hand away.

 

It's not the first time Dean has cried when they do this, but it's never before been like this - Dean choking on it, his breath stuttering, raspy and uncontrolled.  He makes an awful, gulping noise, like he can't breathe, and Castiel is still straddling his hips, afraid and at a loss for what to do.

 

Castiel says again, "Dean," just softly.

 

Dean doesn’t answer.

 

“Will you talk to me?” Castiel says, and Dean pushes at Castiel with his other hand, ungentle. Castiel climbs off him, shuffles awkwardly to sit on the edge of the bed. He wants to touch Dean, but he keeps his hands to himself. Dean turns over, curls into himself, his face towards the wall. There is not much space left on the narrow bed, and Castiel perches uncertainly beside him, his hand hovering near Dean’s hip. “It’s okay,” he says, and he sets his hand in the dip of Dean’s waist. “You’re okay.”

 

Dean reaches up, threads his fingers through Castiel’s, tugs sharply at that hand, and Castiel allows himself to be pulled down to curl around Dean. He presses his mouth to the curve of Dean’s shoulder-blade, and he lets Dean clutch his hand to his stomach.

 

“You’re here with me.” Castiel’s own voice catches. “We made it. We’re fine.” He hesitates, his throat thick. "I—" He makes himself say it. "I love you."

 

Dean shakes silently against him, his head ducked into his chest. His grip on Castiel’s hand tightens to the point of pain.

 

“I love you,” Castiel says. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave you again.”

***

**November, 1953 – two-thousand six-hundred and eight days later**

 

“So why was it that you left your last position?”

 

Castiel shifts in his seat. He touches the knot of his tie, remembers Dean’s careful fingers pulling the tail through the loop. “There was no room to progress,” Castiel says. “I wanted more than they were able to give me.”

 

The interviewer is a rake-thin, balding man with a clipboard. Old enough that he might have seen Europe the first time around, but not recently. He sits back in his chair, one leg cocked up to prop his skinny ankle on his knee. He taps the end of his pen arrhythmically against the board. The sound of it beats loud in Castiel’s good ear, threatening the man’s words where they struggle against the backdrop of voices in the other room. “So you’re an ambitious man,” the interviewer summarises.

 

Castiel’s eyes move past him to what he can see of the grocery store through the fingerprint-smeared window. “Not precisely,” he says, cautious. “I merely meant that I—I wanted a change of scene. Something new.”

 

The interviewer’s eyebrows lift. “Well, which was it? A change of scene or wanting more?”

 

“Both.” Castiel feels suffocated, the room too small, his tie too tight. He touches the knot of it again, swallows and feels his collar constrict with the movement.

 

Sighing, the interviewer runs a hand over his narrow moustache. “I’ll stop beating around the bush here, Mr. Novak,” he says flatly. “I already called your previous employer.”

 

Castiel becomes still. His eyes move past the interviewer to the single exit that sits behind his chair.

 

“Disagreements, huh?”

 

Castiel opens his mouth, but finds the words struggling soundlessly in his throat. He swallows, tries again.

 

“He wouldn’t say what the disagreement was, exactly,” the interviewer says. “You mind filling me in?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, relief and panic inextricably tangled in his gut and rising hot in his throat, and he jerks abruptly to his feet. His voice is calm, cold, measured. “I’m wasting your time. I’ve already accepted another position. I was curious to see if you might offer me something more lucrative, but I’m afraid I should leave. Thank you for seeing me.”

 

He gets his hat and coat and he walks out.

 

It takes three blocks before his hands stop shaking.

 

At home, he is met by the smell of herbs and cooking meat, and at the end of the hall, there is the flat, tuneless sound of Dean humming. Castiel can see him through the doorway at the end of the hall, sat in his wheelchair at the kitchen table, the end of his left knee propped on one of their still-sealed packing boxes, chopping vegetables. Castiel watches him, his hat in his hands.

 

For several moments, Dean carries on, seemingly oblivious; then, finally, he dumps a handful of chopped carrots into the pot at his elbow, and he looks up. “You coming in, or what?”

 

Castiel fumbles for the wall to find the coat-hook, and hangs up his hat and coat. He moves through into the kitchen, side-stepping another box, and he comes up behind Dean. He curves a hand around the back of Dean’s neck, his thumb brushing in slow comfort through his hair. He kisses the top of his head. “Smells good in here.”

 

Dean tips his head back to look up at him. “Thanks. I’m experimenting with new hair oil.”

 

Castiel rolls his eyes and lets his hand fall away.

 

“How’d it go?” Dean asks.

 

Castiel stalls. He takes the pot of carrots from Dean and carries it across to the kitchen faucet. He is silent while he fills the pot with cold water, and then, after a beat, he says, “They’d already hired someone. I think the interview was a formality.”

 

Dean makes a low, annoyed noise in his throat. “That’s lousy.”

 

“Yeah.” Castiel changes the subject. “What are you cooking?”

***

**September, 1955 – three-thousand six-hundred and fifty-one days later**

 

A few hours’ past noon, the air is cooling from lemonade-bright to a soft-edged peach pre-twilight that catches on the curling ends of Jessica’s braid, brings colour to Sam’s cheeks where he is laughing all through the joke’s punchline, Dean shaking his head. Jessica has her feet propped unceremoniously in Sam’s lap, one hand resting on the curve of her belly, the other across her face to stifle her own laughter.

 

The freshly painted picnic table has held up well under the stresses of the summer’s last barbeque; at the foot of the bench, Sam’s dog lolls, lazy, fat with scraps of sausage, her thumping tail gently threatening where Dean’s crutches are precariously propped against the seat. Dean has long since given up melodramatically rubbing at his red nose when approached, and now scratches absently behind the dog’s ear, oblivious as his ministrations turn the ear inside out.

 

Castiel didn’t come last year. Jessica’s sister had been there; Jessica had said it would be safer to avoid the questions if Castiel just didn’t come. Easier. Now, in the garden, out of sight, Dean pours Castiel’s wine. Castiel thanks him, touches his shoulder, looks at him softly. Sam and Castiel work together at the grill, sizzling meat while Dean calls out instructions in varying degrees of helpfulness. Sam jostles Castiel for the pincers, and Castiel serves up for Dean and Jessica—with Jessica laying a hand on his to say, emphatically, “Thank you, Castiel, I’m glad to see that _someone_ is taking care of me,” while Sam declares indignantly, “I’m taking care of you, I’m the one cooking!” Amid their light-hearted squabble, Castiel takes a plate to Dean. He touches a hand to his forearm, thumb gentle over the delicacy of Dean’s inner wrist. Dean, gilded in the cloud-hazy shimmering of late summer light, looks radiant.

 

They eat until they can eat no more, and Jessica sings tunelessly along as the record-player cranks out the same four songs, and Castiel forgets, for a while, what his hands are capable of. He breathes it in—Jessica and Sam finishing the bottle of wine, the dog sniffing hopefully around the grill, and Dean, his mouth tilting up at one side in a lopsided smile—and then Castiel is being reproached, in no uncertain terms, by Mary, who is less than three foot tall, curly-haired, and a force to be reckoned with.

 

“You’re not listening,” she says, and she eyes Castiel with equal parts suspicion and dignity.

 

“I apologise,” Castiel says, and he sets his hands on his knees in earnest. “You and Barbara—”

 

“Barbara and I,” Mary starts again. She has dirt rubbed into her ankle-socks, and grass-stained knees, and a mason jar clutched between her two hands, which contains more roly-poly bugs and beetles than Castiel can easily count. “She showed me how to get ‘em into the jar with a—I got a stick. It’s gotta be a long, bendy one. Barbara says the beetles can—they can bite. One bite and your whole face just—comes right off.”

 

In an undertone from the other side of the bench, Dean says, “Barbara’s full of shit.”

 

Castiel shoots a disapproving glance over, but Dean only grins against the neck of his bottle. It’s the dumb, even smile he saves for when he knows he is being an asshole, and Castiel would like to kiss him or kick his ass. As of yet, he’s undecided.

 

“That’s not true,” Castiel says. “Here—” He holds out a hand for the jar, and Mary approaches. She climbs inelegantly up onto his lap before she passes him the jar of insects. She weighs a little more than a Browning.

 

Castiel dips his hand into the jar—bumps his knuckles against the rim first—and fumbles to grab a beetle. It’s difficult; Castiel’s lack of depth perception leaves him worried about accidentally crushing one in front of her eyes, but with some direction—over there, that one, no, that one—he navigates his way to carefully picking up a beetle. He retrieves it from the jar, lets it tentatively crawl over his knuckles.

 

“See?” he says softly. “He’s not hurting me. He’s more scared of me than I am of him.”

 

Mary wiggles in Castiel’s lap, squirming as the beetle crawls along his wrist towards her. She eyes it dubiously.

 

“Do you want to try?” Castiel asks.

 

Mary hesitates. “Yes, please.”

 

She holds out her hand when prompted, and Castiel carefully tips the beetle into her open palm. She is very still and quiet.

 

“Is he hurting you?” Castiel asks.

 

Mary shakes her head. “No,” she says. “He’s saying hello, I think.”

 

“A polite beetle,” Castiel remarks. “Definitely nothing to be afraid of, then.”

 

As Mary tilts her hand to keep track of the beetle’s slow journey along the underside of her thumb, Castiel lifts his head to see Dean watching them. All his loving and longing is painted upon him like lingering sunlight, and the ache in Castiel’s gut is the bruise of a boot-print. It presses keenly behind Castiel’s ribs and he feels it in his throat, and the small smile that Dean gives—soft and hopeful and sad—makes Castiel lower his eyes, take a deep breath, swallow hard and blink hard.

 

Castiel bounces his knee gently and ducks his head down to speak to Mary. “How’s he doing? Shall we let him go back into the garden?”

 

“Um.” Mary holds out her arm to show him where the beetle has paused near her elbow.

 

“Do you want me to take him for you?” Castiel asks.

 

Mary nods her head, her barrette hanging looser and looser from her fringe. She pushes her hair clumsily away from her face with the heel of her free hand.

 

Castiel carefully pinches the beetle and scoops it up into his hand. He is struck, as it struggles between his fingers, by how small it is, how tiny and vulnerable and easy to kill . Mary watches him, wide-eyed and quiet, and his hands are gentle.

 

“You’re not scared of ‘em?” she asks, as he adjusts his grip on the beetle, holding it loosely in his fists.

 

Castiel looks at her. “Are you?”

 

She shakes her head wildly.  “Not scared of anything.”

 

Castiel lets the beetle free into the grass. “Me neither.”

 

It’s always the same after these visits—the long train ride home, quiet and wistful, sitting close enough side-by-side that their hands touch. Dean folding the latest photograph of Mary into his wallet without saying anything. Castiel keeping the drawing or daisy-chain. The sudden fade into quiet, nameless grief upon their return to an empty house, a place with two bedrooms, and Castiel, throat closed off, trying not to think about the things Dean gave up for him.

***

**June, 1948 – nine-hundred and ninety-three days later**

 

Castiel is awake and there is this awful, loud noise he doesn’t recognise, and he can’t breathe. The dark is all around him and the noise stops and Castiel realises – the noise is him – and he tries to orient himself, tries to find the direction to the front line – he’s going to – he’s going to lose him – and his chest is constricting with panic—

 

“—to me. Cas. Cas, look at me. Cas?”

 

He’s going to throw up. He lurches forwards, gasping, and he doesn’t understand a thing around him except the blood pounding in his ears and the dark unbroken by flares and the tactical silence – like an ambush. He can’t remember where he put his rifle, and every time he tries to breathe, it seizes in his chest, hot and painful like he’s been shot, and he hears himself make this noise – he can’t stop and – he’s going to—

 

“Hey. Cas. Look at me, I’m right here. Cas?” A long pause. “Sir?”

 

There is a hand on his arm.

 

“Look at me. Look at me, Captain, I’m right here—”

 

Castiel recognises that voice, faint and tinny as it is, echoing oddly at the edges. He manages, “Winchester—” and he lifts his head. He is shaking so hard that he can’t focus on Dean’s face.

 

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s me, sir. I’m right here.” Dean’s hand on Castiel’s shoulder. His fingers through his hair. His touch is slow and reassuring, and Castiel can’t quite see him, but he’s here. “It’s okay, Cas. Hey—talk to me about the garden. What’s in your garden? You check on it every day. You’re in Lawrence. What’re you growing?”

 

Castiel can’t breathe. He can’t see out of one eye, and he has no idea what Dean is talking about. “Dean—” he says. “Dean—I’m—”

 

“You’ve got some radishes, I think,” Dean says, his voice low, comforting. “What else? You tell me. You spend more time out there than I do. Radishes and what else?”

 

The garden—Lawrence. Castiel swallows around the panic roiling in his throat. “Jessica,” he says.

 

“Yeah, Jessica gave you the first couple plants from her garden, helped you to get yours set up. You’ve met Jess. She’s in Lawrence. You are, too. Tell me about the garden. You remember what you’re growing?”

 

Castiel blinks, tries to recalibrate. “Radishes.”

 

“What else?”

 

“We’re—fuck.” Castiel takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Carrots. We’ve got carrots and—potatoes. In a big sack. Peas. And—fuck. Fuck.” He pushes a hand backwards through his hair. “Dean, I can’t see.”

 

Dean cradles Castiel’s face in his hands. He kisses his scars. “I know, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

***

 

**August, 1947 – seven-hundred and thirty-eight days later**

 

Castiel lowers the blinds. He closes the windows. He locks the front door, and the back.  He checks the windows, and double-checks, and he smooths the curtains to the edge of the sill, and then he turns back to Dean, laid back and propped on his elbows on the bed, and he pulls his shirt over his head.

 

Dean’s tongue comes out to wet his lips, his eyes on Castiel as he approaches. “You lock the door?” he asks.

 

Castiel’s hands are steady and sure on the button and fly of his slacks as he steps nearer the bed. “Yes,” he says, and pushes his pants down from his hips.

 

“And you checked the—”

 

“Yes,” Castiel says, voice warm, reassuring. “Everything’s fine.” He sets his knees on the mattress. “We’re fine.” He crawls over Dean to kiss him long and slow. Dean makes a muffled noise of complaint at being interrupted, but his hands come up to grip Castiel’s bare hips, and he opens his mouth under Castiel’s. He sighs into Castiel, and he shifts his weight on the mattress, hips lifting. Castiel runs a hand down from Dean’s throat over his chest—fingertips snagging over Dean’s nipple, delighting in the way that Dean’s breath stutters against Castiel’s mouth—and down to palm over the thick line of Dean’s cock through his pants.

 

Dean’s head tips forwards, his forehead butting against Castiel’s; his mouth is open, distracted. His fingers tighten on Castiel’s hips. He is breathing fast, and through the open collar of his shirt, Castiel can see a pink flush climbing from his chest.

 

Castiel undresses him without hurry. He untucks Dean’s shirt from his pants, unbuttons his shirt, fingers slow and careful, kisses over his stomach. A half-laugh bursts through Dean’s teeth as he tenses, bites out, “Ah—cold—” at the slow brush of Castiel’s fingertips over his waist. Castiel smiles into his skin and flattens his hand over Dean’s belly-button to make him yelp and squirm and rage, _asshole, you asshole, stop that._

 

Castiel works Dean’s pants down. He opens his mouth against Dean’s scarred, knotted knee; he kisses his way along the ridged veins of his thigh, the blotches of blackened skin. Under him, Dean is unsteady, his hands fisting into the blanket at either side of his hips. Castiel noses into the crease of his groin, kisses his hip-bones, his stomach, his sternum. Castiel licks over Dean’s collarbone, sucks bruises into the curve of his shoulder, kisses his throat. Dean swallows. He breathes ragged. He looks at Castiel, when Castiel sits back on his heels to kiss his mouth, and the quiet gentleness in him makes something tighten in Castiel’s throat. He doesn’t have words for it; he smiles; he kisses him again.

 

Dean rolls them over and insinuates himself between Castiel’s thighs. He finds the bottle tucked underneath Castiel’s side of the bed, and then his fingers, cold and slick, find Castiel. Dean splays one hand over Castiel’s hip, holds him still as he lays open-mouthed kisses everywhere he can reach; with the other he pushes inside.

 

Castiel’s head tips back. His back arches off the mattress, and a wordless sound rises in his throat.

 

Into the crease of Castiel’s hip, Dean says, “Like that?”

 

“Yes,” Castiel breathes. “Yeah—”

 

Dean works him open, slow and deliberate, and Castiel makes a low sound in the back of his throat, heat curling low in his gut. Castiel gets a hand up to clutch at Dean’s elbow. His eyes flutter closed, and he is breathing fast. There is the stretch of two fingers, and Castiel’s head drops back against the mattress. He rocks slowly down onto Dean’s finger, feeling it to the first knuckle, to the second. Castiel pushes his shoulders back into the mattress, and his hips lift, chasing Dean’s hand. It’s good, sparking electricity at the base of Castiel’s spine, and he wants more.

 

Castiel slides his hand over Dean’s stomach to palm at his hip, and then he has his other hand at the small of his back to pull him in, and Castiel kisses him. They kiss, and kiss, and between every clumsy meeting of mouths, Dean pulls back just enough to breathe, noses bumping, and Castiel can pick out the green of his eyes, the scattering of freckles—distinct, separate—and his brow creases with the effort of trying to focus.

 

“I want to see you,” Castiel says, frustration hot and fierce in his throat. “I just—fuck, I want to—”

 

“I’m here.” Dean threads his fingers through Castiel’s. “I’m right here. If it helps, I look really good. I’m so fucking handsome and I’m not even sweaty or anything.”

 

Castiel swallows, breathless. “Yeah?”

 

“I’m a dreamboat,” Dean says, and Castiel can feel the shape of his smile when Dean ducks his head to kiss him. “I look like Cary Grant.”

 

Castiel huffs a laugh. “Alright, Cary,” he says into the curve of Dean’s mouth. He digs his fingers into Dean’s arm, and Dean, grinning, curls his fingers just so, makes heat snap in Castiel’s gut. “Come on. Come on—”

 

Dean presses him into the mattress and he pushes inside and he kisses Castiel through the initial burn of the stretch, and Castiel makes a low, wordless noise in his throat as Dean slowly rolls his hips. Castiel rocks back into him, and there is heat building underneath his skin, and he can hear that his every breath now is a soft, wanting sound that spills out of his mouth beyond his control. He gasps and he shivers and he clutches at Dean with, _fuck, Dean, yes—_ and Dean presses his face into the crook of Castiel’s neck. As Castiel rolls his hips up into Dean, he realises that he can feel Dean’s mouth moving, pressing words that Castiel can’t hear into his skin.

 

“Dean,” Castiel pants, sweeping a hand up from between Dean’s shoulders to push through his hair. “Dean—wrong—wrong ear, I can’t—”

 

Dean shakes his head. He pushes his forehead into the curve of Castiel’s shoulder, and he is speaking softly as they move together, his voice a buzzing, indistinct murmur of sound, syllables running together— _love—Cas—you’re—_

 

Castiel’s fingers tighten on Dean’s hip. “Dean,” he says, his voice strained with want and desperation. “Please—tell me—”

 

Dean turns his head, presses kisses to Castiel’s jaw, his cheek, his swollen and uneven skin where Castiel’s damaged nerves mean that he can hardly feel the pressure, and there is something burning hot in Castiel’s throat, something stinging at the backs of his eyes.

 

Castiel says, again, “Dean—”

 

“I love you,” Dean says, all in a rush, the words crashing into each other. He says it into the corner of Castiel’s mouth, where Castiel can hear it. “Alright?”

  
Castiel’s hands come up to Dean’s face, brushing his hair face from his face, cupping his jaw in his palms, and he kisses him. “Alright,” he says.

***

 

 

**September, 1945 – the day of**

 

Castiel stays in the spare room.

 

He lies flat on his back on the too-soft mattress, staring at a ceiling which is water-stained, lovingly re-painted. He smooths his hands over the coarse wool blanket. The rushing underneath his skin feels like adrenaline, a tightly-wound uncertainty that kept his pulse hot in his throat all afternoon. There was nothing to be afraid of, rationally—there was Jessica, beaming, radiant, with splashes of cooking sauce on her forearms when she hugged him; Sam, warm and delighted and rambling excitedly about how good it was to see him again; Dean.

 

The journey here was long enough and arduous enough that Castiel was largely able to blame his long silences on being tired. He drank root beer, asked after Jessica’s studies and Sam’s law pursuits, and avoided looking at Dean for longer than three seconds at a time.  He doesn’t know how to control himself. In time, he imagines he’ll remember how to look at Dean without everything he feels etched plainly upon his face, but for now, he doesn’t know how.

 

Through the window the night is cold and clear, silvery pale in moonlight across the floorboards and across Castiel’s skin. He reaches to the bedside table for his watch, and squints in the thin light for the time. The numbers won’t come into focus, no matter how he shifts the angle of the watch’s face; he gives up and sets it back. He imagines it must be a little past oh-one-hundred—the house has been quiet and still for some time.

 

Castiel looks across at the wall against which this narrow bed is pushed. He imagines he can hear Dean breathing on the other side—safe, well, warm. Castiel touches his fingertips to the flaking plaster.

 

He swallows thickly. He turns his head to stare up at the ceiling. He listens to the silence.

 

He gets out of bed.

 

Castiel moves quietly, slowly, over complaining floorboards, out into the hallway, and then he hesitates. He stands with his fingers mere inches from the door-handle, holding his breath, his pulse loud enough as it drums within his skull that he thinks he must wake up the house.

 

He reaches for the door-handle. Misjudges the distance, fumbles. When he pushes the door open, it is louder than he anticipated, the hinges squeaking, and for a moment he is frozen in the doorway. This was a mistake. This was presumptuous bordering on a fit of insanity

 

There is movement inside, barely visible in the dark. Moonlight through the window picks out a shape within the bed—a shape that moves to pull back the blanket, to make room on the narrow bed.

 

Castiel goes in. He climbs into bed beside him. He gets both hands planted solidly on Dean’s chest, laid on his side, and their foreheads knock together. Dean is wide awake, sleepless and tense. Castiel feels, beneath his fingertips, when Dean’s breath catches in his throat.

 

Castiel touches him. He cups Dean’s face in two hands, thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones, tracing the line of his jaw; he grazes fingertips over the ridge of Dean’s shrapnel scar, smooths Dean’s hair back, brushes over the shell of his ear; he slides a hand down Dean’s neck, over his shoulders. Dean, beneath his hands, breathes slow and shaky. Dean doesn’t touch him back. He is trembling beneath Castiel’s reverent palms.

 

Dean swallows, drops his chin. His forehead rolls against Castiel’s temple, and the thin moonlight that spills through the crack in the curtains paints the crease of Dean’s crumpled brow in silver. His hand lifts, beneath the covers, to reach halfway towards Castiel, but does not close the distance.

 

Castiel slips his hand under the blanket to find Dean’s hand where it lies, lost, cold, against the lumpy mattress. He tangles his fingers through Dean’s, squeezes. He runs his thumb over his knuckles. He pulls Dean’s hand across the space between them to press Dean’s palm to Castiel’s waist. The answering hitch in Dean’s breath is a shuddering sound, and his fingers tighten, digging into Castiel’s side so hard that Castiel feels the half-moon bite of his fingernails, bruises blossoming. Dean is breathing too fast.

 

_I’m here,_ Castiel wants to say, but he opens his mouth and everything bottlenecks behind his teeth, his throat thickening. _I came back._ His other hand comes up, cradles Dean’s jaw, touches his thumb to swell of Dean’s lower lip, and Dean closes his eyes. He is haloed on the pillow by moonlight. He is rapturously, unthinkably beautiful.

 

Dean leans in halfway as though to kiss him, but comes up short, breathing open-mouthed, and his nose bumps alongside Castiel’s. He lifts a hand to the side of Castiel’s jaw, runs his fingers over scar tissue. His fingertips bump over the uneven, mottled skin, the places where patchy stubble can still grow, and where the skin is rubber-smooth and bald. Dean touches the corner of Castiel’s mouth.

 

Castiel pulls his hand from where it has anchored Dean at his waist, touches Dean’s throat, brushes over the ridge of his collarbone. Dean’s hand sweeps up, slow, hesitant, from Castiel’s side, to smooth over his side, his stomach and chest, his forearm; it lifts a shiver that traces the length of his spine, tilts him further forwards until they are breathing the same air, lips brushing but not yet meeting. He leans into Dean. He leans on him.

 

They meet in the middle.


End file.
